Terraforming

Local Boy Scout, Will Wilson, prepares a strip of land on the north side of our church property to receive St. Augustine grass. This work is Will's Eagle Scout project. He is being assisted by other scouts and his father. This will beautify and make mowable this area below the retaining wall that we have not been able to do much with until now. Good work, Will!

Sts. Joachim and Anne, Parents of the BVM

Today the Church celebrates the feast of Sts. Joachim and Anne, parents of St. Mary the Virgin. Devotion to them goes back to the second century, but only became common in the sixth. The gospel reading from today's feast is Matthew 13:16-17, two short verses.
The words of Jesus in today’s gospel follow a quotation from the prophet Isaiah: Listen and listen, but never understand! Look and look, but never perceive! This people’s heart has grown coarse, their ears dulled, they have shut their eyes tight to avoid using their eyes to see, their ears to hear, their heart to understand, changing their ways and being healed by me.
Here Jesus is approving those disciples who listen through his parables to their inner meaning, and allow them to change their lives. Many have longed to see what you see.
Think of the advantages any baptized Christian has over Abraham or Moses. What we receive from Christ is so far beyond what they received that there is no comparison.
Even if we had been present at the Burning Bush, it would not be a greater encounter with God that is that sacramental union with him that we receive in Holy Communion.

Collect for the day: God of our fathers, you gave Saints Joachim and Ann the privilege of being the parents of Mary, the mother of your incarnate Son. May their prayers help us to attain the salvation you have promised to your people. Grant this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spriit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Back in the Saddle

I have decided to come back to blogging, and this is my first installment in months. Michael Odom, our organist-choirmaster and I spent a week in Indianapolis at the national convention of the National Association of Pastoral Musicians. Many good experiences and much music we\re had by both of us. It will take time for us to separate the gold from the dross.

Summer is half over, and today we celebrate the feast of St. James, Apostle of Christ and patron of Spain where his aid was invoked during the reconquista, and was apparently effective since it earned him the sobriquet: Matamoros, or Moor-Slayer. The great shrine at Compostella was a major pilgrimage goal in the middle ages, and is still so today.

One noteworthy thing on this feast as it is celebrated at Compostella is the botafumeiro, a gigantic thurifer that is hung from the ceiling. Once it gets going, it is swung by men like a large pendulum from the ceiling of the church. Such a wonderful thing would make a great addition to our church here in El Dorado.

Along with St. John, he, with the help of his mother, was trying to get to sit on either side of Jesus when our Lord had come into his kingdom. He was beheaded by Herod Agrippa around the year 44, and was the first of the apostles to die a martyr. Saint James, pray for us, and for the Church in Spain!

Relatives of beheaded Iraqi priest say kidnappers demanded apology for pope's muslim comments

The Associated PressTHURSDAY, OCTOBER 12, 2006

Published: October 12, 2006
MOSUL, Iraq Relatives of an Orthodox priest who was kidnapped and found beheaded three days later said Thursday that his captors had demanded his church condemn the pope's recent comments about Islam and pay a US$350,000 (€280,000) ransom.
More than 500 people attended a memorial service Thursday for father Amer Iskender in the northern city of Mosul after his decapitated body was found Wednesday evening in an industrial area of the city.
Iskender was a priest at the St. Ephrem Orthodox church in Mosul.
Click on title to read the complete article.

As I have said and will continue to say: It's the religion of Islam that is the fault. There is no other excuse.

Where have I been?

It's been a busy time for me the last two weeks. I haven't been able to blog at all. On October 1 I was invested as a Knight of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem at the annual meeting of the Southwestern USA Lieutenantcy in Austin, TX. Forty folks from Arkansas were there and eight hundred all together. Fifty couples were invested as Knights and Ladies, and five clergy. It was an altogether interesting and enjoyable weekend. Next year will be in Oklahoma City, and then, in 2008, in Little Rock.

I am trying to work my way onto the pilgrimage to Jerusalem that is set for November. If I am able to go, I will receive the pilgrim's shell from the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, along with the other members of the Order making the pilgrimage.

Our organist-choirmaster up an quit a few weeks ago, without giving notice. We now have services a capella as the Orthodox do, or the Churches of Christ (so-called). I am now the choirmaster.

Some are piously trying to resurrect the local ministerial alliance here in El Dorado. With all the protestant churches in town, the liturgical churches like the Catholic and Episcopal are surrounded in a sea of fundamentalism. It is really problematic, because they have no real conception (except for a precious few of the downtown ministers) of what our Church us like, or how we worship. We'll see how things go.

The church's new parking lot was inaugurated on the first weekend of October. It gets right filled up before the Sunday Mass. It is a much appreciated addition. Now, if they'd just get finished with my driveway.

Spread of race ghettos fuels gang warfare

Spread of race ghettos fuels gang warfare

Shiv Malik

AN east London teenager who became a drug dealer and a knife-wielding member of a street gang lays the blame on the transformation of his neighbourhood into an ethnic minority “ghetto” where turf warfare flourishes.

Click on the title to read the rest of the article.

Sunday Afternoon in the rectory

It is nice to be able to take some time to relax after the vigorous workout that Sunday always seems to be. It is good, though, to be tired for working for the Lord. This is something that everyone who follows Christ should feel often. It today's gospel, the announcement of the death and resurrection that Jesus gives the disciples leads, instead of humble acceptance and fortitude, to an argument among the apostles about who would be the greatest. Jesus sets a child in their midst and suggests that those who would be greatest in the Kingdom of God would be those who serve and seek the lowest place. They should become as lowly and unassuming as a child.

The apostle James suggests that the divisions and malice that dwell among men is the result of our own sinful attitude. We desire, but we cannot have. We ask but not rightly.

St. Thomas Aquinas once addressed the question of whether the prayers of the saints in heaven were always answered. His response was that when in heaven, the saints' will is totally fixed upon and in union with God's will. Therefore, since God's will will be done, the prayers of the saints are always answered. The sed contra was, I believe, that if that were so, it would mean that the saints in heaven had lost or given up their free will. This would mean that the saints had suffered a privation as a result of their salvation, which of course would be absurd. Aquinas then posited that they did in fact retain their free will (a gift from God that was part of the wholeness of man), but since the goal of their will on earth was there before them, i.e., God, that having obtained what their wills had always sought, they would never turn away from but were fixed upon the object of their wills. They were totally in conformity with the will of God, thus their prayers are always answered, because they only will what God wills, and, whether we here below like it or not, God's will is always accomplished. If we asked, rightly, as the apostle James suggests, then our prayers would be always answered, too. For they would always be in union with the will of God.

The above picture of a medieval fresco is one that I took when I was in France on a pilgrimage to Lourdes in 2000. It was taken at the church of the Jacobins or Dominicans in Toulouse. St. Thomas Aquinas is buried in this church which is famous architecturally for only having two aisles rather then the regulation 3 or 5, so the columns run down the center of the church. The capitals of the pillars and the vaulting are made to look like palm trees, which I would show you if the blog would accept the picture, which for some reason it is not.

All Virtue ought to be prudent.

Omnis virtus moralis debet esse prudens: all virtue is necessarily prudent. Only someone who is silent is listening. And only the invisible is transparent. To be sure, a deeper silence than mere abstention from speech and utterance is required. There is also interior speech which must also become mute, so things might find their proper utterance.

Since reason is nothing else than the power to understand reality, then all reasonable, sensible, sound, clear, and heart-stirring talk stems from listening silence. Thus all discourse requires a foundation in the motherly depth of silence. Otherwise speech is sourceless: it turns into chatter, noise, and deception.

We lose our speech not only when we are forced down below the threshold of our being but also when we are raised up above our capacities. (Josef Pieper)

Where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there is disorder and every foul practice. But the wisdom from above is first of all pure, then peaceable, gentle, compliant, full of mercy and good fruits, without inconstancy or insincerity. And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace for those who cultivate peace.

Where do the wars and where do the conflicts among you come from? Is it not from your passions that make war within your members? You kill and envy but you cannot obtain; you fight and wage war. (St. James, Apostle)

True Christianity

As reported by the Islamic Republic News Agency:

Qom's Friday prayers leader, Ayatollah Abdullah Javadi Amoli, condemned recent vilifying and anti-Islamic claims of the world Catholic church leader Pope Benedict XVI.
"Pope should know that had it not been for Islam and its divine book, nothing would have been left of Christianity and Judaism," said Ayatollah Amoli in his Friday prayers sermons.
Amoli noted that had the brilliant and refreshing Quranic verses on the life of such great prophets as Jesus (AS), Moses (AS) as well as Saint Mary (SA) not been revealed to holy Prophet of Islam Hazrat Mohammad (PBUH), the American Christianity and the Zionists would not left anything of the divine Christianity and Judaism.

Of course, this means that present day Christians and Jews are at best misinformed about the true faith, or are, at worst, deliberately at enmity with God because they have not become muslims. This is so laughable that I wish that I had some recorded laughs that you could listen to while you read that. I simply must repeat that all public revelation from God ended with the death of the last apostle. Therefore, any other suposedly new or further revelations from God, e.g., the Koran (Big Mo) Book of Mormon (Joseph Smith) or the ravings of Ellen G. White (7th Day Adventists) or Mary Baker Eddy (Christian Scientists) or Charles Taze Russel (Jehovah's Witnesses) are only merely human words, and in no way the Word of God.

As Christians, our hearts go out to the poor members of these sects that are benighted by these false revelations. We must continue to try to reach them by prayer, sacrifice, evangelism, as well as the example of lives lived in God's grace. With St. Paul, we must constantly reaffirm that there is only one Lord, one Faith, and one Baptism, one God, who is Father.

Bonfire of the Vanities: The true history of the spread of Islam#links

This is an ironic but very insightful piece by Father Fox. Check it out, please. Frl Gregory

Bonfire of the Vanities: The true history of the spread of Islam#links

Well Worth Reading

Can We Talk? Hosni Mubarak should call Benedict XVI.

BY DANIEL HENNINGER Friday, September 22, 2006 12:01 a.m. EDT

Who says the world lacks leaders? After again expressing his "respect" for Islam, Pope Benedict XVI at his weekly Vatican audience two days ago moved one of his knights forward on the global chessboard of Islamic politics.
Amid amped-up security in St. Peter's Square, the pope said: "I trust that after the initial reaction, my words at the University of Regensburg can constitute an impulse and encouragement toward positive, even self-critical dialogue both among religions and between modern reason and Christian faith."
Setting aside the impeccable understatement of "the initial reaction"--churches torched world-wide--it is close to thrilling in a world of persistent confusion about the intentions of contemporary Islam to see the pope step forward, not back, and speak without apology on behalf of "modern reason."

(Click on the title to read the whole article.)

Benedict the Brave

This appeared in the Wall Street Journal today.

(Click on the title to see the article in the WSJ)

Benedict the Brave

The pope said things Muslims need to hear about faith and reason.

Tuesday, September 19, 2006 12:01 a.m. EDT

It's a familiar spectacle: furious demands for an apology, threats, riots, violence. Anything can trigger so-called Muslim fury: a novel by a British-Indian writer, newspaper cartoons in a small Nordic country or, this past week, a talk on theology by the head of the Roman Catholic Church.
In a lecture on "Faith and Reason" at the University of Regensburg in Germany, Benedict XVI cited one of the last emperors of Byzantium, Manuel II Paleologus. Stressing the 14th-century emperor's "startling brusqueness," the pope quoted him as saying: "Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached."
Taken alone, these are strong words. However, the pope didn't endorse the comment that he twice emphasized was not his own. No matter. As with Salman Rushdie's "Satanic Verses," which millions of outraged Muslims didn't bother to read (including Ayatollah Khomeini, who put the bounty on the novelist's life), what Benedict XVI meant or even said isn't the issue. Once again, many Muslim leaders are inciting their faithful against perceived slights and trying to proscribe how free societies discuss one of the world's major religions.
Several Iraqi terrorist groups called for attacks on the Vatican. A cleric linked to Somalia's ruling Islamist movement urged Muslims to "hunt down" and kill the pope. In an apparently linked attack Sunday in Mogadishu, a nun was gunned down in a children's hospital. Pakistan's parliament unanimously adopted a resolution condemning the pontiff and demanding an apology.

Under pressure and no doubt to stop any further violence, the pope on Sunday did so. "I am deeply sorry for the reactions in some countries to a few passages of my address . . . which were considered offensive to the sensibility of Muslims," he told pilgrims at his Castelgandolfo summer residence. The quote doesn't "in any way express my personal thought. I hope this serves to appease hearts."
It was a gracious gesture on the pope's part, especially because his original argument deserves to be heard, not least by Muslims. The offending quotation was a small part in a chain of argument that led to his main thesis about the close relationship between reason and belief. Without the right balance between the two, the pontiff said, mankind is condemned to the "pathologies and life-threatening diseases associated with religion and reason"--in short, political and religious fanaticism.
In Christianity, God is inseparable from reason. "In the beginning was the Word," the pope quotes from the Gospel according to John. "God acts with logos. Logos means both reason and word," he explained. "The inner rapprochement between Biblical faith and Greek philosophical inquiry was an event of decisive importance not only from the standpoint of history of religions, but also from that of world history. . . . This convergence, with the subsequent addition of the Roman heritage, created Europe."
The question raised by the pope is whether this convergence has taken place in Islam as well. He quotes the Lebanese Catholic theologist Theodore Khoury, who said that "for Muslim teaching, God is absolutely transcendent, his will is not bound up with any of our categories." If this is true, can there be dialogue at all between Islam and the West? For the pope, the precondition for any meaningful interfaith discussions is a religion tempered by reason: "It is to this great logos, to this breadth of reason, that we invite our partners in the dialogue of cultures," he concluded.

This is not an invitation to the usual feel-good interfaith round-tables. It is a request for dialogue with one condition--that everyone at the table reject the irrationality of religiously motivated violence. The pope isn't condemning Islam; he is inviting it to join rather than reject the modern world.
By their reaction to the pope's speech, some Muslim leaders showed again that Islam has a problem with modernity that is going to have to be solved by a debate within Islam. The day Muslims condemn Islamic terror with the same vehemence they condemn those who criticize Islam, an attempt at dialogue--and at improving relations between the Western and Islamic worlds--can begin.

Pope Shenouda III of Alexandria and the Copts

(This article is from Dhimmiwatch. Click the title to read the whole article.)

Fitzgerald: The Coptic Pope is held hostage.

The Coptic Pope -- the one held hostage by the Muslims of Egypt, subject to their pressures, aware of the potential for mayhem and murder visited upon the Copts by Muslims at any time -- has denounced the Pope of Rome. We understand this. We understand that he is held hostage, and we dismiss these remarks even as we now dismiss the Michel Sabbaghs and Naim Ateeks and other "Palestinian" islamochristians who speak out of internalized fear, and also in some cases out of a misplaced identification of "Uruba" or "Arabness" with Islam. (That is an identification that Muslim Arabs insist on forcing on everyone who uses Arabic, and only the Maronites and the Copts, and not even all of them, have refused to fall for this aggrandizing and false definition of "Arab").
But here's the point. What if the world remains too fearful and confused ever to confront the truth? After all, those whose duty it is to instruct us remain unable to instruct us out of the fear and confusion from which Pope Shenouda is suffering. Or, still worse, they remain silent out of a diseased sympathy for Muslims, a belief that we should not tell the truth about Islam but try only to "win hearts and minds" of Muslims by lying to ourselves, as well as to them, about the nature of Islam. Yet the evidence is not only in the texts, not only in the 1350 years of Jihad-conquest and subjugation of non-Muslims, but in the behavior of Muslims, mobs and rulers, clerics and generals and political figures and so-called "intellectuals" alike, all over the world. (Click on the title to read the rest of the article.)

The Need for Sacrifice

I don't wish this, but perhaps it's time for Catholics to realize that we, as the representative Christian Church in the world, will have to sacrifice for the sake of unmasking Islam. As the articles below have shown (as well as recent history), Islam is not a religion of peace unless it has silenced all criticism and dissent from it. I say that Catholics are the representatives of Christian religion because when the riots after the pope's speach started, the first two churches that were attacked were a Greek Orthodox and and Anglican church. Their minds are too weak to discern any difference among Christians, and neither of those two churches are in union with Rome. (As you can see from the photo, the Gaza muslims are ready to dialog.)

Perhaps when the Pope goes to Turkey they will try to assassinate him. If they don't, that's good. If they do, then a murder of such cold-bloodedness and disgusting evil would be something that could shake the Christian West out of its sleep and awaken it to the present evil.

I'm not advocating the death of our Holy Father, but I am suggesting that there will have to be sacrifices if we are to continue our Christian way of life. The evil of Islam is not retreating. They are the enemies of Christ and our holy Faith.

Al Qaeda threat to 'slit throats of worshippers of the cross'

Click on the title and it will take you to the site of this article. Once again, Islam proves itself to be the "religion of peace." And if you don't believe that, then they'll be happy to kill you in order for you to understand.

Was the Pope Wrong?

I'm publishing this with permission of the History News Network---Fr. Gregory

Was the Pope Wrong?
By Timothy R. Furnish

Mr. Furnish, Ph.D (Islamic History), is Assistant Professor, History, Georgia Perimeter College, Dunwoody, GA 30338. Mr. Furnish is the author of Holiest Wars: Islamic Mahdis, their Jihads and Osama bin Laden (Praeger, 2005).
Back when it was still amusing, “Saturday Night Live” had a skit called “Bizarro World” in which conventional wisdom was turned upside down (my favorite—humorously, not politically—was one in which Ronald Reagan, far from being the somnolent buffoon of liberal legend, actually ran Cabinet meetings till others fell asleep and spoke on the phone in Arabic to Qadhafi).
But nowadays it seems that reality is imitating art (okay, popular culture) as Muslims engage in violence if anyone dares suggest…that Islam has a violent strain! Last spring it was attacks on Christians for the Danish newspaper cartoons caricaturizing Muhammad; now Muslims are burning churches in the Palestinian territories and India because the pope made a reference to Islam’s martial past. At his best, Al Franken could not have come up with such skits (not that he’d have had the courage to do so).

Last week Pope Benedict XVI lectured at the University of Regensburg, in Germany.1 His address is largely a continuation of the efforts by his predecessor, John Paul II, to bridge the gap between faith and reason that has developed since the Enlightenment in Western and, indeed, world society.2 Benedict believes that Greek philosophy is an integral part of the articulation of Christian revelation, especially its emphasis on reason. He spells out three phases in the attempted “dehellenization of Christianity:” the Reformation, liberal 19th and 20th century theology and modern “cultural pluralism” which wants to “return to the simple message of the New Testament…in order to inculturate it anew….”3 Each of these movements, argues Benedict, is dangerous because each threatens to jettison reason. On the other hand, “reason which is deaf to the divine and which relegates religion into the realm of subcultures is incapable of entering into the dialogue of cultures.” Faith and reason are two sides of the coin of Christianity, Benedict in essence is saying.
So why are churches burning in Palestine? Because of the example the pope used to illustrate his point. He quotes the Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Paleologus (d. 1425) who, in a debate with a Muslim, said
Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith that he preached….God is not pleased by blood—and not acting reasonably is contrary to God’s nature. Faith is born of the soul, not the body. Whoever would lead someone to faith needs the ability to speak well and to reason properly, without violence and threats. To convince a reasonable soul, one does not need a strong arm, or weapons of any kind, or any other means of threatening a person with death….
Benedict goes on to gloss this passage, noting that the Islamic view of God’s absolute transcendence put Him above even the necessity for acting reasonably (by human standards)—a view foreign to Christianity, imbued as it is with the Greek respect for rationality. The pope concludes his lecture with “it is to this great logos, to this breadth of reason, that we invite our partners in the dialogue of cultures.”
One might think that Muslims would be offended because the head of the world’s largest Christian denomination considers them, well, unreasonable. But the rent-a-mobs in Gaza and Kashmir are proving the truth of his assertion in that regard. As for the numerous statements by Muslim spokesmen that the pope is “ignorant” of Islam and Islamic history—well, the reality is that they simply can’t handle the truth.
First, Muhammad was not just a man claiming that God spoke through him; he was also a political and military leader. Driven out of Mecca and taking the reins of power in Medina, Muhammad and the Muslims spread their faith not just via da`is (missionaries), but by the sword; in fact, Jews in Medina who refused to accept Muhammad’s prophethood (and who, to be accurate, were accused of plotting against King Muhammad) were killed or enslaved. The conquest of Mecca in 630 CE was accomplished at swordpoint, not by persuasion. The creation of a huge Islamic Empire by the first four caliphs, the Umayyads and the Abbasids (between 632 and the end of the first millennium CE) was carried out via conquest—not by handing out brochures. Granted, Jews and Christians within the Muslim-ruled territories from the Pyrenees to the Indus were not all forced to convert—but the relegation to second-class status known as dhimmah led, eventually, to the majority of people in North Africa and the Middle East converting to Islam.
The initial phase of Islamic conquests resulted in about half the territory of the Byzantine (Eastern Roman) Empire switching hands. For several centuries the borders stabilized and the Byzantines ruled a state pushed back into Anatolia and the Balkan Peninsula. But in the 14th century CE a new wave of Muslim jihadists, the Ottoman Turks, were again moving on Byzantine lands. This was the situation facing Manuel II, and no doubt his view of Islam as “evil and inhuman” was in no small measure influenced by watching what was left of his empire disintegrating. (Indeed, less than three decades after his death Constantinople would fall to the Ottoman ruler Mehmet II.) One might ask how many Muslims setting fire to Christian churches, or to effigies of the pope, are even aware of this? I suspect that even if they were, it would make no difference.
For, in the view of some Muslims, it is not unreasonable to spread their religion by violence, for two reasons: 1) it is the final revelation of God to humanity and 2) the Qur’an enjoins it. To paraphrase Dr. Henry Jones (Indiana’s father): “goose-stepping morons like yourselves should be reading your holy book instead of burning churches.” If they did, they would discover that: Surah Muhammad [47]:3 says “When you meet the unbelievers on the battlefield, strike off their heads….
Surah Anfal [8]:12 says “I shall cast terror into the hearts of the infidels. Strike off their heads, strike off the tips of their fingers.”
Surah al-Nisa’[4]:74 says “Let those who would exchange the life of this world for the hereafter, fight for the cause of God….”
Surah al-Nisa’[4]:56 says “The true believer fights for the cause of God, but the infidel fights for the devil.”
Surah al-Nisa’[4]:101 says “The unbelievers are your inveterate enemies.”
Surah al-Ma’idah [5]:51 says “Believers, take neither Jews nor Christians for your friends.”
Only in a truly Bizarro world can those passages NOT be an incitement for some to violence, to “evil and inhuman” acts. Are there other passages in the Qur’an mitigating these? Yes.4 But many of these more benevolent passages are also considered by many Muslims to have been abrogated by the more martial ones.
Many, Muslim and non-Muslim, try to make the counter-argument that “all religions have violent passages.” Let us take one prominent example: the New Testament. There is really only ONE passage in the entire New Testament that can be construed as promoting violence—Matthew 10:34: “[Jesus said] Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.” But, the following verses explain that Jesus was speaking metaphorically and not advocating a quick trip to the local Jewish armorer: “For I came to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and a man’s enemies will be the members of his household. He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me.” The belief in Jesus as the Messiah and the Son of God will divide even families. Also, Jesus explicitly told his followers to turn the other cheek when struck (Matthew 5:39; Luke 6:29) and, for those of you who may not have heard the story, voluntarily allowed himself to be crucified by the Romans. Did his teaching later get twisted into a state ideology—beginning with the Roman Emperor Constantine? Indeed. But that is the point: Jesus’ teachings had to be forced to fit into a Roman (and later Carolingian, Crusader, etc.) suit of armor—whereas the chain mail of Islamic armies was fashioned directly out of Muhammad’s revelations.
Pope Benedict XVI is too smart a man not to have known what would be the repercussions of quoting an exasperated Byzantine emperor on Islam. By doing so the pope has thrown down the gauntlet to the Islamic world, subtly insisting that true “dialogue” between the world’s largest (Christianity) and second-largest (Islam) religions demands that the latter own up to its historical misdeeds every bit as much as the former has had to do for at least a century. Unfortunately, honest historical and theological reflection in the Islamic world would seem to be far too “unreasonable” to contemplate for many of the world’s Muslims
1 Available at http://www.guardian.co.uk/pope/story/0,,1873277,00.html
2 John Paul II, Fides et Ratio (Boston: Pauline Books, 1996).
3 Interestingly, regarding this last point Benedict XVI seems to contradict his predecessor, who in Fides et Ratio, p. 91, said “In preaching the Gospel, Christianity first encountered Greek philosophy, but this does not mean at all that other approaches are precluded.”
4 Surah al-Furqan [25]:65ff says Allah will be merciful to those who do good works; Surah al-Baqarah [2]:256 says “there shall be no compulsion in religion” (although the kidnappers of those two Fox newsmen seem not to have read this); and Surah al-Nisa’ [4]:19ff commands Muslim men to provide for wives and ex-wives.

The Holy Name of Mary

Today, I'm at my monastery of Subiaco, situated on a hill south of the Arkansas River. Like all of the state, they have suffered from this summer's drouth. A good rain yesterday helped. I hope that El Dorado got some as well.
The feast of the Holy Name of Mary dates from 1513 in Spain. In 1683 the Turk was besieging Vienna, after conquering Hungary and sending over a million Christians to the slave markets of Constantinople. Nothing seemed to be able to defeat the armies of Mehmet IV. To assist the Holy Roman Emperor, Leopold III, John III Sobieski, King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania (1629-1696), came to the rescue of the beleaguered city. He was assisted by Charles V, Duke of Lorraine, leader of the imperial forces. The Turk was completely defeated and fled back to Constantinople in disgrace. The King had entrusted himself and his soldiers to the protection of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Pope Innocent XI extended this feast day to the Universal Church.
This battle marked the turning point in the struggle between the Ottoman Turks and the Christians that went on for 300 years. In the course of the next sixteen years, the Holy Roman Empire was able to drive the Turk from Hungary and Transylvania which had been brutally annexed. Hostilities ceased with the treaty of Karlovitz concluding the Austro-Ottoman War of 1683–1697.
After the battle, the Austrians discovered many bags of coffee in the abandoned Turkish encampment. Using this captured stock, Franciszek Jerzy Kulczycki opened the third coffeehouse in Europe and the first in Vienna, where, according to legend, Kulczycki himself or Marco d'Aviano, the Capuchin friar and confidant of Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor, added milk and honey to sweeten the bitter coffee, thereby inventing cappuccino.
So we have three things to celebrate today, the intercession of the Holy Mother of God for the defeat of Islam (always a good thing), the relief of the siege of Vienna, and (ultimately) America's drink of choice. How good is God!

Poor Pluto

For those of you who (like me) are sad about the demotion of Pluto from its planetary status, check this out.

St. Gregory I, the Great

Sunday, 3 September, will be the feast day of St. Gregory the Great. (Click the title for a good biography of him.)

Before the reform of the Roman Calendar, (see this link for information at

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03158a.htm )

this feast was held on 12 March. However, in the desire to remove saints' feasts from Lent, Gregory was moved to 3 September, the day of his ordination as Bishop of Rome.

Since he is my holy patron saint, I think that a few words about him are in order. He is considered to be the first Pope of the Benedictine Order, although that's probably stretching it since we cannot really say that the "order" existed until the time of Charlemagne (even though many individual monastic houses followed Benedict's Rule for Monasteries). He included a chapter about St. Benedict in his book Dialogues and had very good things to say about him and St. Scholastica, Benedict's sister. As a matter of fact, all that we know of the life of St. Benedict is contained in Gregory's Dialogues. So we Benedictines claim him as our own, one of a long line of Popes that our order has contributed to the Holy Roman Church.

(Here is another link: http://www.wilsonsalmanac.com/book/mar12.html and another: http://www.patriarts.com/Gregory.htm)

Patron saints have been a wonderful affirmation of the communion of saints in the Catholic Church. I have always had a devotion to Gregory, and have tried to model my pastoral care on his teachings. But there are other saints whom I invoke to aid me, viz.: Our Lady of Einsiedeln (the patroness of the monasteries that founded Subiaco); St. Joseph, Sts. Benedict and Scholastica; Meinrad and Gall (early Swiss monks); St. Alfred the Great, King of England (my middle name is Alfred, after my grandfather); St. Pius V, Domincan and Pope on whose day I was baptized; the Prophet Ezekiel whose feast is my birthday, 10 April (Ezekiel spoke about being a watchman for the house of Israel, and Gregory means "the Watchman."); St. Thomas Pilcher, a kinsman of mine and an English Martyr under Bloody Lizzie I, (bastard daughter of Henry VIII and the witch, Ann Bolyn) who was drawn and quartered in Dorchester; and finally, my Guardian Angel, whoever he/she may be.

There was a king of France, whose name escapes me now, who used to wear a hat with medallions of all his patron saints on it. When he was in need, he'd take off the hat, hang it on a nearby bush or something, and kneel and pray to his patrons. They always seemed to come through for him, and mine have always come through for me. I have tried to upload some icons of St. Gregory, but Blogger is being contentious today. The URLs above have some good pix.

Saint Gregory the Great, pray for us!

The Last Day of August

We're already at the end of the month. How quickly the summer has gone. The children are already back in school. We had a very moving blessing of teachers and students at Mass last Sunday. The old Holy Redeemer school campus that was bought by the local school board has been completely refurbished and now houses the kindergarten and first grades for Yocum School right across the street. Shows what you can do when you have a lot of money and a lot of workmen. While it is sad not to have our parish school anymore, it is a great financial relief to the parish.

George Hoeltzman (click on the title above for a link to see his work) of Hattieville, AR came here last Sunday and presented a workshop for the RCIA. I'm hoping that this will jump-start our program this year.

The work is proceeding rather haphazardly on the new parking lot across the street from the front of the church. We're hoping that people can park on it starting the second Sunday of September.

Rain

After weeks of drouth and heat, yesterday and today gave us rain. We had a short and hard rain yesterday afternoon, and a long, slow rain that began in the night and quit in the morning. The temperature is a little cooler, but naturally, humid. God be praised and St. Bartholomew! Sadly, this has slowed the construction of our new parking lot. But they will get going again.

St. Bartholomew's Day

Today is the feast of St. Bartholomew the Apostle, also known as Nathaniel.

Outside of his mention in the New Testament, Bartholomew appeared for the first time in the works of Eusibius. He is supposed to have traveled to India and preached the gospel there. He was martyred by being flayed alive by the king of Armenia. He is the patron saint of tanners, a patronage that this monk finds appropriate to the point of irony.

Today is also the date of the infamous massacre of St. Bartholomew. Under the queen dowager Catherine de Medici, and her son, King Charles IX, the people and nobility of Paris rose up and slaughtered the Huguenots in the city. This slaughter spread throughout France, and over all, about 10,000 or more protestants were slain. Gregory XIII, when he wasn't busy reforming the calendar, had a Te Deum sung, and had Giorgio Vassari paint murals celebrating this "triumph." These were later sanded over and repainted with other scenes by the 19th century.

Too bad a perfectly good saint and Apostle of Christ has to have his name associated with such an atrocity.

Words of wisdom from Merton

"We too often forget that faith is a matter of questioning and struggle before it becomes one of certitude and peace. You have to doubt and reject everything else in order to believe firmly in Christ, and after you have begun to believe, your faith itself must be tested and purified. Christianity is not merely a set of foregone conclusions. Faith tends to be defeated by the burning presence of God in mystery, and seeks refuge in him, flying to comfortable social forms and safe convictions in which purification is no longer an inner battle but a matter of outward gesture."

From the Archdiocese of Philadelphia

August 14, 2006
STATEMENT FROM CARDINAL JUSTIN RIGALI REGARDING EILEEN DIFRANCO

Recently, there has been extensive media attention regarding an attempted ordination of women, which took place on a river boat outside Pittsburgh on July 31, 2006. Eileen DiFranco, who is known to members of Saint Vincent DePaul Parish in the Germantown section of Philadelphia, participated in the event. Accordingly, the following statement is issued regarding this activity. Recently, there has been a good deal of publicity about a woman of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, Mrs. Eileen DiFranco, participating in a simulated ceremony of ordination to the priesthood on a river boat outside Pittsburgh. The long-standing and constant teaching of the Church, based on Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition, and confirmed in Church law, states that the Church is simply not authorized by Christ to confer Holy Orders upon women, and cannot do so, no matter how ardent a person's desire may be. Therefore, such a simulated ordination of a woman to the priesthood is clearly and simply invalid. I am saddened when anyone publicly jeopardizes his or her relationship with the Church, which Mrs. DiFranco unfortunately has done by her action. Although I attempted to dissuade Mrs. DiFranco from participating in this invalid ritual, nevertheless she proceeded to do so. Now I am left with no alternative than to report this matter to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in Rome, as I am obligated to do. The ultimate goal of any action taken against Mrs. DiFranco is to encourage her repentance and reconciliation with the Church. I shall continue to pray for this intention. Each and every Catholic man and woman brings different gifts to the Church and exercises them in a variety of roles, according to the state of life to which they have been called by Christ. United in the love of Jesus, we are all at the service of His Body, the Church. In pledging to avoid scandal and discord, we can help to reap a bountiful harvest for our Lord Jesus Christ.

The bishop of Rochester (CofE) speaks out

Multiculturalism is to blame for perverting young Muslims
By Michael Nazir-Ali, Bishop of Rochester

Given the world view that has given rise to such grievances, there can never be sufficient appeasement, and new demands will continue to be made. It is clear, therefore, that the multiculturalism beloved of our political and civic bureaucracies has not only failed to deliver peace, but is the partial cause of the present alienation of so many Muslim young people from the society in which they were born, where they have been educated and where they have lived most of their lives.

Click on the title above for the whole article.

Does U.S. bigotry cause Muslim madness? by Michael Medved

(The following is a quote from the above article. Click on the link to read the whole thing.)

The core problem involves the Koran’s teaching that Mohammed represents the last prophet, that his revelations amount to the ultimate “seal of knowledge,” and that a just, well-ordered world will place his faithful followers in positions of greater power, prosperity and peacefulness than their infidel neighbors. For anyone who takes Islamic teaching seriously, the current state of the world offers a glaring, painful example of cognitive dissonance: the backwardness, poverty, and endemic misery of Muslim societies—particularly compared to the privilege and prosperity of the West—either undermines the validity of the Holy Koran, or proves that evil infidel conspirators have upset the natural, proper, and Godly order of things. In the 1930’s, the passion behind Nazism arose from a burning sense that the German people had been gypped, that the infamous “stab in the back” of the Versailles Treaty had deprived the nation of its rightful position of world leadership. Islamo-Nazis feel an even more galling sense of injustice, oppression and unfairness, since hostile forces have, in the view of the devout, denied them the chance to live out their divine endowment of world dominance.

From Headley Lamar

My mind is a raging torrent, flooded with rivulets of thought cascading into a waterfall of creative alternatives...

It's Islam, Dummy

It is Islam, dummy

Monday, 14 August 2006

The terror and death inflicted on humanity is not the work of radical Islam, neither the political Islam, nor the militant Islam. It is Islam, period. Get it? And the perpetrators are not fringe elements confined to brainwashed Saudis, loony Taliban, or a know nothing Pakistanis who have hijacked Islam and are now in the business of mass murder. The latest project of the practitioners of the “religion of peace” aimed to blowing planeloads of innocent civilians to smithereens in midair over the Atlantic -- ought to finally drive the point home: it is Islam, dummy. Get it?

Click on the link to read the rest of this insightful article.

Blessed be her glorious Assumption

Arise, O Virgin Queen, you are for ever worthy of our praise; take your place in the glorious dwelling place of the eternal King. (Antiphon for Vigils)

Almighty God, you gave a humble virgin the privilege of being the mother of your Son, and crowned her with the glory of heaven. May the prayers of the Virgin Mary bring us to the salvation of Christ and raise us up to eternal life. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit one God, for ever and ever. Amen. (From the Roman Sacramentary)

O God, you have taken to yourself the blessed Virgin Mary, mother of your incarnate Son: Grant that we, who have been redeemed by his blood, may share with her the glory of your eternal kingdom; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen. (From the Book of Common Prayer)

River Priestesses or the Pittsburg 8

(This excerpt is from an article in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinal)

Vandenberg, 64, said Monday that she was "startled" by the letter and surprised that Dolan had "spent so much time and energy" on it when "other important things" might demand his attention.
In his letter to the parish, Dolan said he was "disappointed because Ms. Vandenberg and I had begun a fruitful dialogue on the matter last fall. At that time, . . . I had advised her that any attempted ordination would affect her relationship with the church. "I believed her sincerity when she assured me that she was unaware of such a consequence, and did not want that to happen."
Vandenberg called her meeting with Dolan "very cordial . . . very respectful. . . . I told him about my call to ordination . . . and he was trying to give me some reasons to stay" in the church.
She was stung that Dolan made details of their talk public. "We both agreed that the meeting would be private," she said. Dolan and Vandenberg disagree on what happened after the meeting. "She promised she would confer with me about her next step," Dolan wrote to the parish.
"In two subsequent letters, I have asked for her decision. Her regrettable participation in the protest gives me her unfortunate answer." Vandenberg said that "wasn't quite accurate." "I did respond to him in a letter," she said. "And I said . . . I (was) still deciding what I should do."
On July 31, Vandenberg and 11 other women took part in an
ordination ceremony in Pittsburgh - eight to become priests and four to be deacons. Roman Catholic Womenpriests, which
organized the event, has held similar ceremonies in Canada and Europe. The group claimed last week's ordinations were valid, performed by women "bishops" secretly ordained by anonymous male bishops. Dolan termed them "simulated and
invalid."
Of official efforts to sever her ties to the church. Vandenberg
said: "Excommunication is simply a punishment. That doesn't mean I'm excluded from the church. Only I can exclude myself." And that she is not planning to do.
"I want to always be respectful of the church and the bishop," she said, "but there are times when you have to be obedient to God and not the bishop."

I think that the reverend lady needs to contemplate the meaning of the word "excommunication." She just doesn't get it.

Heard in a conversation

The difference between Islam and Christianity is that in Islam,

Allah sends your sons to die for him. In Christianity God sends His Son to die for you.

Deaths

Our parish neighbor, Frank T. Jones, who lived across West Main from the church, died this week after a long fight with cancer. He was a member of First Baptist Church, here in El Dorado. He is survived by his wife, Maxine. I'd known Frank from the first years I had been here. He wasn't married to Maxine at the time. He used to make fudge and bring it over to the office to share with us. Always concerned about the neighborhood, he wanted everyone to keep up their property. He was very glad for us when we began our expansion, buying properties and cleaning them up. By doing so we improved the neighborhood to his gratification. He was a good friend to us, and I'm delighted that Maxine asked me to be a pall bearer for his funeral this afternoon. We will remember him and Maxine in our prayers.

I received word today that a young couple formerly of our parish lost their baby before the child had come to full term. Our hearts go out them in their time of grief. I will be doing the funeral on Tuesday.

Comments

I'm getting a number of anonymous comments that are being spammed to my blog. In order to keep them out I've enabled a way for you to comment, but not them. When you log on to comment there will be a word verification spot for you to fill in certain random letters that appear above the box. Do that after you've written your comment, and then hit login and publish. Father Gregory

Making Music in a World Gone Mad

It has been awhile since I've been able to devote much time to music. I should get back to it. The nice thing about a bowed psaltery (pictured above) is that it hardly goes out of tune for months at a time.

Here is Sr. Christine, OSB, from St. Scholastica Monastery in Ft. Smith, Arkansas, playing the autoharp. The nice thing about living in community is that there are often other musicians to play with, and there are plenty of opportunities for performing.

Here is a picture of me performing with Srs. Therese and Lisa, OSB when I was chaplain at Holy Angels Convent, Jonesboro, Arkansas. This was during Christmas one year. I was able to arrange some pieces for us to do together. Being busy nuns, they rarely had time for practicing, so we kept things simple but elegant (as Benedictines always should).

We live in busy times, and follow many schedules and agendas. Too bad we don't make more time for things that truly refresh the soul, like music, art, and good conversation. Too often our thoughts and words are about the peripheral and the ephemeral---even among vowed religious. St. Benedict tells us that we should basically keep quiet most of the time, and only open our mouths for prayer and worship. Not a bad idea even to this day.

I don't know what the saint would say about folk music. He probably wouldn't like it and consider it to be too trivial or distracting. In earlier times our monasteries were way more cultured than they are today. Almost every monastery had an orchestra in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. An entering novice was given an instrument and told to learn to play it. Not any more, though.

It is always interesting to see the daily schedules of the monastery and school from decades past. There was so much time given over to cultural pursuits. You wonder how they had time for all that they did. Nowadays even monks feel the squeeze of time in the daily routine. Only when one has retired to the infirmary (excuse me, Health Center) does a monk have time on his hands. But then every room there has a television.

Perhaps the whole problem began with the advent of the ball-point pen and triple carbons on forms. Ever try to fill out a carbon form with a fountain pen? It is designed not to work. Function triumphed over art and swept aside the elegance of the fountain pen. So much for illuminating manuscripts. Perhaps, if we had more time, we could do things like this in monasteries again (left).

The real problem is convincing ourselves that we should take time for things. Just as constancy in prayer is the only way that we can be said to have a prayer life, so also, taking time for the arts is the only way that we will live a cultured life that nurtures the spirit, too.

Cheap crafts from China have flooded the religious goods markets and drive out real Christian art. This has led me to postulate Pilcher's Law of the Economy of Art (modeled on Gresham's law) that bad art drives good art out of circulation. I think that it's time for people to start spending time doing things of the spirit. Especially Catholics.

Gotta get me one of these

Pope Innocent III Action Figure

Introduce this Pope Innocent III Action Figure to your other figures and watch the spiritual sparks fly! Armed with his formidable power of excommunication and an intimidating scroll inscribed with Latin text, this 6" tall, hard plastic model of the 176th Pope will soon have all your other action figures lining up for confession. Read the back of the illustrated blistercard and you'll find that Pope Innocent III was a good guy in all respects. He was a patron of the arts, cared about orphans, built a hospital and reunified the Papal States! Comes with removable fancy Pope hat.
Pope Innocent III Action Figureitem 11147Set of 2 $4.99

Found at Archie McPhee's toys and gifts.

As quoted in http://thenewliturgicalmovement.blogspot.com/

PRESS RELEASE – ImmediateCatholic Union Chairman, James Bogle, calls upon the Catholic bishops of England and Wales to reviews their decision to move weekday holy days.

LONDON, JULY 31, 2006 - The Chairman of the Catholic Union of Great Britain, Mr James Bogle, a London barrister, has called upon the bishops of England and Wales to review their decision to move three holy days of obligation from being celebrated during the week to being celebrated on the nearest Sunday.Speaking to The Catholic Herald of London, Mr Bogle said that the bishops had not consulted widely enough among the laity, that he thought few of the laity strongly objected to celebrating holy days on weekdays and that the move was an unnecessary capitulation to the spirit of secularism now dominating society. He added that secularism was a failure that was not making people happy.Mr Bogle told Zenit, the Catholic news service, that the rhythm of the feasts and fasts of the liturgical year is an important spiritual and practical reminder to Catholics and others that Christians look to a greater set of priorities than just the pursuit of material and worldly gain. "In former times", he said, "Our ancestors in the Faith divided the year according to the round of the Church's calendar so that the whole of society was constantly reminded of the story of Christ's life. In the Middle Ages nearly one third of the year consisted in holy days. Working people even had enough spare time even to use some of it to build, freely and out of love and devotion the great Cathedrals that are the pride of European Christianity. This freedom accorded to the Christian working man was removed at the Protestant Reformation along with many other rights.""Today in Britain there are few religious public holidays there being beside Easter and Christmas only the Bank holidays. We have left off celebrating the Christian feasts and the lives of the saints in exchange for holidays which are convenient to banks. This bespeaks a curious inversion of priorities: money over holiness, material wealth over the Faith. How the bishops think that reducing the few holy days that Catholics celebrate will, as they suggest, 'facilitate Catholics' observance of important feasts' I cannot imagine. On the contrary, it is merely giving in to the materialistic spirit of the age that prefers banks to saints".Mr Bogle said further "The reality is that mass attendance on Sundays is going down almost as rapidly. This is a manifestation of a much deeper malaise. This move is a further step in the privatisation of religion and the banishment of Christian witness from public life and society.”Mr Bogle suggested that a radical re-think was now required not only by the bishops but also by all responsible for catechesis and evangelisation."We need to reinforce success not failure", he said. "We should look to those areas of the Church which are exhibiting success and which are growing and evangelising. The inescapable fact is that orders like the Missionaries of Charity, the nuns of Blessed Teresa of Calcutta, who make greater, not less, demands for commitment and sacrifice are those which are attractive to young people. Likewise Christian marriage is a holistic commitment without reservations.""Christian renewal cannot come from loving only by halves. Young people know this and are not impressed by back-tracking. This is why those religious communities that seek the whole Gospel are the ones that are thriving and those Orders that want to go back on their original charism are the ones that are drifting, waning and closing down. Now is the time to invest in the future not hold a closing down sale. The opportunity to witness to fellow workers on Holy Days of Obligation by attending mass during the week has now been further reduced by this latest decision. It is yet another big sign to the world of a closing down sale and I strongly urge our bishops to re-think their decision."The Catholic Union of Great Britain is an association of the Catholic laity in England, Wales and Scotland to promote the Christian standpoint in public affairs. It was first founded in the 19th century with the Duke of Norfolk as its President. The Catholic Union includes peers, members of the UK, European and national parliaments and local authorities as well as Catholic professionals from all backgrounds. The Catholic Union regularly lobbies government on a whole range of issues of Christian and general importance.

Fr. Gregory comments: Here in the US we've been dealing pragmatically with the question of Holy Days of Obligation. We've moved Ascension Thursday to the 7th Sunday of Easter, (thus destroying the Pentecost novena, the 9 days between Ascension and Pentecost that have always been a special time of prayer and emphasis on the Holy Spirit) and we've made any other Holy Day of Obligation non-obligatory if it falls on either side of a Sunday, except the Immaculate Conception, December 8, (Patronal feast of the USA) and, I believe, All Saints' Day, November 1. Now when I use the term "pragmatic" I don't necessarily agree with it. Should not Catholics observe a different calendar when it comes to the liturgical year? (Even though the Gregorian Calendar ---named after its eponymous instigator, Gregory XIII---is really the liturgical calendar of the Latin Rite Catholic Church.)

Yes, is is more difficult to go to Mass on a non-Sunday holy day. But then, again, it is easier to offer incense to the statue of the Emperor rather than suffer the humiliation (and pain) of being thrown to the lions. In the long run, however, which would be better? I ask this sub specie aeternitatis.

Yes, we are making the readings, prayers, etc., of the holy day or Epiphany more accessible to folks by moving them to Sundays when everyone is kind of pre-disposed to attend church. Isn't that a good thing? However, a good thing at what price? Perhaps it is the same price that we pay for the Saturday evening "vigil" masses that are so much a part of most American parishes. Here, those who have to work on Sunday, and who cannot otherwise attend the Sunday liturgy (I'm being cynical now because there are really few people in that situation) can fulfill their obligation by attending a Eucharist that has started after First Vespers of Sunday (the Church arbitrarily assigns 4:00 p.m. for this).

Do you ever look at a Saturday-Mass congregation? They are so tired they can hardly drag themselves in. They can only mumble the responses, and singing with any religious lust is out of the question. If they thought that you'd push their chests in and out for them they would quit breathing! Preaching to this group gives you about as much feedback as preaching in a cemetary!

Capitulating to the prevailing "culture," whether by moving holy days of obilgation to Sundays, or moving Sunday to Saturday evening hardly seems to advance the spiritual agenda of the Church. If we could only have some studies to enlighten us! Then we would know. But we don't want to know, really.

Another from Michael S. Adams

“When I am hunting and I know I see a deer in the brush, I pull the trigger. When I know it is a human, I hold my fire. When I don’t know, I also hold my fire. The feminist who doesn’t know whether a fetus is a person, has the abortion anyway. In other words, she just pulls the trigger. Nonetheless, feminists still feel they are morally superior to hunters.”

Intellectual Anschluss (all over again)

The following appeared in this week's edition of The Tablet. It is unbelievable how close this sounds to Nazism.

Christa Pongratz-Lippitt

In Vienna

THE AUSTRIAN Supreme Court's decision that a gynaecologist who failed sufficiently to warn a pregnant woman that her baby might have Down's syndrome must be held financially responsible for the child's care has come in for widespread criticism in Austria, from the Church, Catholic associations and others outside the Church.
Bishop Klaus Kung of Sankt Polten, who has a degree in medicine and is responsible for family affairs in the Austrian bishops' conference, said that by signaling that handicapped life is a case for damages, the Supreme Court's decision is a disastrous sign that points in totally the wrong direction". (Well, they got something there!) The decision was, moreover, "arrogant", as only God could judge over life and death.

At an ultrasound examination in the twenty-third week of pregnancy the gynecologist noticed certain anomalies. He told the pregnant woman to have further tests but did not tell her that the anomalies could be the first signs of Down's syndrome. The woman waited until the thirty-second week before going for further tests and then the baby was diagnosed with Down's syndrome. By this time it was too late for an abortion. The mother claimed the doctor gave her "insufficient information" and the Supreme Court agreed with her. Her child is now nine years old. (End of the article)

What's she been doing for the last nine years? Guess it just got too much for her, poor thing. Of course, she could have given the child to adoption services, or foster parents, or left it in the turnstile of the convent of the sisters who take care of orphans. Nazi Germany annexed Austria in the 1930's after a favoable plebiscite. (The German word used to describe this was "Anschluss.") With all the medical experimentation that Nazi doctors practiced, and the extermination of all those who were "unworthy of life" you'd think that we might have progressed. In this case it sounds like the Nazis have annexed the minds of the Austrian Supreme Court. I guess that regression rules there.

Ducks rather limited

(The following is taken from the blog Heart Mind and Strength"

by Gregory Popcak. While it is a spoof on recent attempts at ordaining women,

it makes the point.)

JOURNALISTIC IRRESPONSIBILITY OR "TWELVE WOMEN BECOME DUCKS IN ELABORATE CEREMONY" [Gregory Popcak]

6/15/2006

By Marylynne Pitz, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

On July 31, a dozen well-educated, experienced human women will pass into uncharted metaphysical waters on a boat cruising Pittsburgh's rivers.
On that afternoon, three women dressed in feathers and beaks will lay their hands on the heads of the 12 women and anoint their hands with oil during a "Water Fowl Creation Ceremony" that will be the first of its kind in the United States.
Among the participants is Joan Clark Houk, 65, of McCandless, who with seven other women are answering a call to become ducks and unite themselves more closely with nature; the other four are candidates to be ducklings.
It will be the fourth such ceremony in the world since 2002, all unrecognized by the conservation group, Ducks Unlimited. The women are part of a growing international movement to push for women's ability to become another species.
The Women's Water Fowl Conference, based in Fairfax, Va., will announce today its support of the Pittsburgh ceremony, which will be held aboard the Gateway Clipper boat Majestic. Pittsburgh was selected because of its central location.
In a three-page letter dated May 9, Mrs. Houk, a member of St. Alexis in McCandless, advised the President of Ducks Unlimited of her plans. She has received no response. Mrs. Houk also sent a copy of the letter to all 360 members of the organization in the region.
"It is a sin for Ducks Unlimited to discriminate against women and to blame nature for it. Today, women can be anything they want to be--even ducks out of water" Mrs. Houk wrote.
Jack Messer, spokesman for Ducks Unlimited, said the organization "has determined that women can't turn themselves into ducks, you idiot. That humans are humans is a part of the ways of nature. No one is free to change that. Why are you bothering us with this nonsense? You should be talking to a shrink about these women, not pestering me. The creation of other ducks is reserved to ducks, you dimwit.."
The participants in the July 31 ceremony, Jack Messer noted, are ignoring basic science. "I would say they have freely chosen to separate themselves from reality," he said.
Mrs. Houk is a cradle human and mother of six human children. She has served as a conservation worker in two Kentucky forests, worked in environmental preservation programs, taught conservation and became an honorary member of the International Order of Foresters and worked with her husband, John, in the National Aviary in Pittsburgh.
"Responsible conservationists have to take a stand for women ... if we truly love nature, we must be willing to be one with nature. This is really why I have to do what I am doing. There are many women who feel as I do" she said in a recent interview.
Presiding at the ceremony will be Patricia Fresen, Gisela Forster and Ida Raming, who live in Germany and are Mallards in WomenWaterFowl International, an international group of women who support women's right to make damn fools of themselves.
The women claim they are not violating natural order because they at least share some similar DNA as natural ducks. The women claim that many scientists agree with them, but refuse to name them for fear that Ducks Unlimited will send their highly trained albino assasins to kill these scientists. When asked about this, Ducks Unlimited's Messer said "I mean no disrespect, but these women are out of their frickin' trees."
Ms. Forster and Ms. Raming joined the "Danube Seven," a group of women who turned themselves into turkey vultures on the Danube River near Austria in August 2002.
In January 2003, all seven were committed to mental institutions. The women appealed but the decision was affirmed.
Ms. Fresen belonged to an order of conservationists for 45 years. But she left her group in 2004 after she was created a tufted grouse in Barcelona, Spain, in a secret ceremony. Since 2004, she has lived in a small nest outside of Munich, Germany.
In human tradition, ducks and other birds are hatched from eggs, but WomenWaterFowl International's previous ceremonies were held aboard boats, on the Danube in 2002 and on the St. Lawrence Seaway near the Canada coast in August 2005.
"To be honest, the main reason is that no scientist is willing to admit that we're actually ducks and birds," Ms. Fresen said about the ceremonies on water.
A boat is one of the earliest natural symbols of water-fowl-ness. "Ducks float. Boats float. Ducks float around boats. Some of the earliest ducks floated," she added.
One of the outspoken disciples in the women's water fowl movement is Ruth Steinert Foote, a board member of the Women's Waterfowl Conference--which she runs from her elderly mother's basement.
In March, Ms. Foote brought Ms. Fresen from Germany to the United States for six speaking engagements in the Midwest.
"Everywhere that we went, she was received with many quaks, tweets, and gobbles. She is a wonderful, brave and fowl-filled woman. Patricia Fresen is the person that will change hearts," Ms. Foote said.
In a recent telephone interview from her home, Ms. Fresen said her many friend's struggle against apartheid when she lived in South Africa taught her "a great deal about how to fight against gender discrimination. For me, the right to self-determine that I am a bird is parallel."
Ms. Foote, an active member of a Duck pond, is a medical technologist and married to an Episcopal priest.
"This movement is not just about women becomng birds. It is about making the scientific community a just institution. If women are made in the image and likeness of God, they have the potential to become ducks if they want to," she said.
Christine Schenk, a member of the Sisters of Saint Joseph and executive director of Chicks for Chicks, a birdwoman organization which attempts to effect change within the scientific community, will not openly support the ceremony in Pittsburgh, she said.

For the Peace of Jerusalem Pray

Statement of Chairman Henry J. Hyde
before the Subcommittee on Africa, Global Human Rights and

International Operations

“The Plight of Religious Minorities: Can Religious Pluralism Survive?”

2172 Rayburn House Office Building
Friday, June 30, 2006


Chairman Smith and Members of the Subcommittee,

I want to thank you for holding this important hearing. I also want to thank Father Firas (FUR-ahs) for coming all the way from the Holy Land to provide testimony. He will be discussing the plight of Palestinian Christians living in Aboud.

Over the course of the past three years, I have become increasingly engaged in the challenges facing Christian institutions and their communities in the Holy Land. The more Ilearn, the more I realize how central their situation is to the resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The plight and security of Christians in the Holy Land is complex and nuanced. There are historical, current and future obstacles that threaten the survival of their community. A community not able to survive in the land of its origin would be a historical injustice. We must do all we can to preserve the indigenous Christian community in the Holy Land.

My concerns have emphasized the current reality that this dwindling community faces. Ignoring the present challenges only adds fuel to the fire and accelerates the arrival of long-term concerns that are more difficult to resolve. I conveyed these concerns in a letter to then-Secretary Powell in 2004 and more recently to President Bush this past month. Through articulating these concerns I do not wish to imply ill will toward either Israel or the Palestinians. My only intent is to report the facts and to see how the United States Government can help to improve the situation without compromising Israel’s legitimate security concerns or religious freedom in Israel and Palestine.

Palestinian Christians are increasingly finding themselves caught in the middle of a bipolar situation between Islamic and Jewish extremism. It is this divide that is undermining the pluralistic character of Palestinian society. The implications of this reality have strategic implications on U.S. national security interests. If the heart of moderate and secular elements in Israeli and Palestinian societies is weakened, it will derail the implementation of President Bush’s vision of two states living side by side in peace and security. The Middle East conflict is more towering than ever before. Perhaps, we should consider setting aside past strategies that have not accomplished this bold vision and find new ways to strengthen the peacemakers? One way to do this is to reduce the sources of extremism and strengthen a dialogue among religions as a bridge to peace.

Jerusalem is a universal city sacred to the three monotheistic faiths: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. The coexistence of the core narratives of the three monotheistic religions is not only what makes Jerusalem unique, but is also the foundation of the stability of the city, if not the entire region. Maintaining the Holy City’s indigenous and multicultural identity is critical to preserving the declining pluralistic nature of the Holy Land’s many fabrics. The Department of State’s Annual Report on International Religious Freedom documents the destabilizing impact which the construction of the separation barrier in Jerusalem is having on its inhabitants. Local Christians view the barrier as something that is seriously damaging religious freedom in the Holy Land, impeding their access to important holy sites, and tearing at the social fabric of Christian life by destroying the important linkages between Jerusalem and Bethlehem. According to the State Department report, the barrier blocks the annual procession on Palm Sunday from Bethpage into Jerusalem in commemoration of when Jesus began his triumphant entry into Jerusalem.

I have been unable to understand how the currently routed barrier in Jerusalem – which rips asunder the existential poles of Christian belief, the Nativity and the Resurrection and encloses 200,000 Palestinians on the Jerusalem side of the barrier – will improve the security of Israel’s citizens. The fact that the barrier is to be lined with settlements discloses political goals irreversible in nature. These developments conflict with President Bush’s repeated statements that the barrier being erected by Israel should be a security rather than a political barrier.

The rapid decline of Jerusalem’s Inter-religious narrative jeopardizes strategic American interest in the city and values shared by Americans of all faiths. Establishing physical embodiments of extremism at the volcanic core of the Middle East conflict – precisely at a time when Islamic fundamentalism is on the rise – threatens to transform a resolvable, negotiable territorial conflict into a religious war with global implications.

For so long, Jerusalem has been viewed as a political obstacle to peace. I would like to suggest that the opposite is true. Jerusalem is the key to preserving religious pluralism in the Holy Land. The political problems of the city are a microcosm of the broader conflict. Its repercussions are exported and felt throughout the world. If measures are taken to protect its religious and cultural diversity, the struggle to assert her identity will end, resulting in a peace that will reverberate throughout humanity. If this goal is not achieved, I fear that important holy sites will become museums for commercial purposes and will no longer be maintained as places of spiritual worship shared by billions across the world. U.S. leadership is vital to safeguarding the integrity of the Holy Land and all its inhabitants.